Boston Celtics | The Official Site of the Boston Celtics BOSTON – The struggling New York Knicks were desperate for a win Wednesday night as they took... 5 hours ago Amanda Pflugrad and Marc D'Amico discuss a rare poor performance during the fourth quarter by the C... 5 hours ago The Celtics struggled to generate any momentum in the fourth quarter and fell to the Knicks, 117-... 8 hours ago Key Moment Simply put, the Knicks made the plays that they needed in order to win... 9 hours ago How Boston dominated sports for the past 10 years - ESPN The Magazine This story appears in the Oct. 3, 2011, issue of ESPN The Magazine. Boston teams have dominated over the past decade for one reason: They have brains. Across the American sports landscape, there are still holdouts who question the value of statistical analysis, battling on like lost Japanese soldiers fighting World War II into the 1970s. Meanwhile, the Patriots, Red Sox and Celtics have become sabermetric pioneers in their leagues. By doing so, they have gained advantages on the field, in the war room and at the gate, helping Boston claim seven titles and 29 playoff berths since 2001.

Before we go any further, we should stipulate: Nothing we're about to say applies to the Bruins. Advanced metrics have become commonplace in some sports. Hockey isn't one of them. There are some statistically progressive NHL teams. The Bruins aren't one of them. The Stanley Cup they won last season, while a lovely capstone for Boston fans, is a useful reminder that sometimes sports is about lining your guys up and beating the hell out of the other guys. But maybe someday the sophisticated use of data will even reach the B's, the way it's spread to the rest of the city's pro teams. It seems inevitable, really. Boston is a rabid sports town that semi-regularly goes into hysteria over events that the rest of the country hardly notices, such as Doug Flutie drop-kicking an extra point in 2006 and Tim Wakefield notching his 200th career win this season. It's also long been a place where a familiarity with statistics, from ERAs to Democratic primary percentages, permeates everyday conversation. "Cotton Mather probably had a slide rule," jokes Current TV host and former Boston sportscaster Keith Olbermann, referring to the 17th-century minister from New England.

Boston is a premier college town too but one that doesn't have a dominant major-conference team (again, excluding hockey). Harvard, Boston College, Boston University, MIT, Northeastern and Tufts are the best known of the more than 50 schools in the area. They incubate a steady stream of young, free-thinking fans focused on the city's pro franchises, who are unshackled by the übertraditional thinking that attends big-time football or basketball programs. In fact, if you listen to diehards from Billerica, Saugus and Worcester, you'll notice two things. One is that nobody outside the state of Massachusetts knows how to pronounce their hometowns. Two is that they're ready to deploy the latest statistics as debate weaponry. "On sports radio in this town, you hear about WHIP and OPS and VORP more frequently," says Doug Tribou, a producer for Only a Game, a National Public Radio sports show produced at WBUR in Boston. "And I get deluged by e-mails saying we should be more detailed in what we discuss.

When Albert Haynesworth came to the Patriots this summer, there was an entire chain with breakdowns of his play." "Having said that," Tribou adds, "remember what it's all fixated on. At Celtics games, 'Yankees suck' chants routinely break out." Revolutions always seem inevitable after they happen. But it took Boston decades to evolve from a geeky sports town to a town where geeks run winning sports teams. Step one was academic: In the 1960s, researchers started using mainframe computers to analyze sports, and especially baseball, laying the groundwork for reevaluating traditional strategies. They began to see the game as a system that moves from one state of baserunners and outs to another. They also began to understand the profound importance of regression to the mean and random chance, two hallmarks of analytics. “ In virtually every area where stat geeks suggest NFL teams could operate better, you'll find Belichick applying their advice. ” In 1975, a statistics professor named Carl Morris, who later chaired Harvard's statistics department, co-wrote a paper in the Journal of the American Statistical Association.

He used Bayesian statistical techniques to not only estimate the rate of a blood disease called toxoplasmosis but to also project batting averages. Two years later, his forecasting methods reached a much wider audience in Scientific American. The pieces helped establish sports as a legitimate subject for research; PhDs could finally, openly, profess their love of games. Eventually, many fans-turned-academics began to congregate in the Boston area, specifically in Cambridge. At Harvard in the mid-1980s, you could find Stephen Jay Gould, the popular paleontologist, investigating the disappearance of .400 hitters, and Ed Purcell, who had shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1952, talking about batting streaks. Around the same time, from 1977 to 1988, Kansas author Bill James published his influential Baseball Abstracts. In 1990, USA Today started printing dramatically expanded box scores. Desktop computers got cheaper, and so did access to sports data and research.

All of this meant that if you were growing up around Boston 15 to 25 years ago, you were surrounded not just by passionate fans but also by some of the smartest people in the world analyzing sports, and by endless reams of new information. It meant that if you were Theo Epstein, who graduated from Brookline High School in 1991, or Daryl Morey, who received an MBA from MIT in 1996, you dreamed an entirely new sports fantasy: not of being the athlete who hits game-winning home runs but of being the GM who puts together rosters of game-winning athletes. Lo and behold, those kinds of jobs opened up in Boston about a decade ago as team ownership suddenly became more professional. For most of the 20th century, Boston teams were run as dynasties: Tom Yawkey and his wife owned the Red Sox from 1933 to 1992; Billy Sullivan founded the Patriots in 1960 and owned them until 1988; the Celtics had a series of owners, but Red Auerbach was either president or general manager of the team from 1951 to 1997.

There were some advantages to operating teams essentially as family businesses -- Yawkey spent his own fortune to acquire players (as long as they were white); and nobody assembled talent like Auerbach -- but by the late 1990s it was clear that none of the clubs was maximizing its potential in an affluent, sports-crazed city. Investors saw Boston's mediocrity as an opportunity, and they swooped in to acquire each team. Fortunately for the Hub, these buyers were not media companies looking to dally in sports, which has done so much damage to franchises in New York, LA and Chicago. They were men who made their wealth largely by using data to target and acquire undervalued financial assets, and their respect for statistical analysis extended to the field of play. Robert Kraft came first, buying the Patriots in 1994 for $175 million, a record price for an NFL franchise at the time. After an up-and-down run with Bill Parcells, Kraft hired Bill Belichick in 2000. The coach, a former economics major, has refused to play along with the idea that the NFL is a copycat league.

With help from Ernie Adams, a film and stats obsessive whom Belichick has known for more than 40 years and who is the current director of football research, Belichick constantly searches for information that can give his team an advantage. In 2002, he shocked the media by saying he had read a little-publicized research paper in which Berkeley economist David Romer argued that teams should be more aggressive on fourth down. After newspapers quoted Harold Sackrowitz, a Rutgers statistics professor, saying teams didn't go for two points often enough, Adams asked Sackrowitz to study the conversion chart New England was using. "Nobody had any real interest other than the Patriots," Sackrowitz told The New York Times in 2004. In virtually every area where statistical analysts suggest NFL clubs could operate better, you'll find Belichick applying their advice. The Patriots are among the least-conservative teams on fourth downs. They pay for expected future performance, not the past: Drew Bledsoe and Lawyer Milloy are among the many beloved veterans Belichick has summarily let go over the years. And they trade down in the draft, accumulating far more player value for the dollars they spend than most clubs.

The rest of the NFL still hasn't caught up: Coming off a 14-2 season, the Patriots had nine draft picks this spring. As for the Red Sox, maybe you've heard about how wunderkind Theo Epstein became the youngest GM in baseball history in 2002, vanquished the hated Yankees and liberated the team from its 86-year-long curse. But you might not appreciate just how thoroughly statistical analysis soaks the organization. Principal owner John Henry, whose group acquired the team in 2002 for $700 million, is a commodities trader whose firm specializes in computerized trend-spotting. Larry Lucchino, the former Orioles and Padres executive who took over as Red Sox president and CEO, once wrote a list titled "Top 10 Qualifications of the Ideal General Manager." No. 2 was "Familiarity with, and willingness to use, modern quantitative approaches in evaluating players, in addition to traditional methods." The Red Sox employ not only Bill James but Tom Tippett, who created the popular computer simulation game Diamond Mind Baseball.

Backed by a front office that relentlessly studies everything from batting average on balls in play to how the weather at Fenway Park affects pitchers, Epstein has hauled bales of underappreciated talent to Boston over the past nine seasons. His first Red Sox teams were loaded with cheaply available sluggers, including David Ortiz , maybe the greatest pickup of a released player of all time. Then, as other teams began applying the lessons of Moneyball, which was published the year after Epstein took over the Sox, he proved adaptable. As early as 2004, Epstein traded Nomar Garciaparra for two defensive-minded players, and last season he announced the team would focus more on run-preventing talent (enter Carl Crawford ). Yes, Epstein has splurged to acquire superstars such as Curt Schilling and Adrian Gonzalez . But the Red Sox also invest heavily in the amateur draft, the surest way to lock up talent below market prices. Mixing sabermetric evaluation with traditional scouting lets Boston find players who might be overlooked by organizations more focused on physique, tools or reputation. And the Red Sox are willing to spend more than slot (MLB's recommended levels) to sign them.

The Henry-Epstein regime has developed Jonathan Papelbon , Dustin Pedroia , Jon Lester , Jacoby Ellsbury and Clay Buchholz -- plus a boatload of other players still on their way to the big leagues. In September 2002, nine months after Henry landed the Red Sox, local venture capitalists Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca headed a group that bought the Celtics for $360 million, and sabermetrics came to Boston basketball too. “ The Celtics keep most of their findings confidential, with one exception. It's about the hidden downside of turnovers. ” Morey, then a 30-year-old consultant who helped calculate the team's value, proved to be a statistical whiz during the sale, and Grousbeck soon hired him to be the Celtics' senior VP of operations and information. "First, we reorganized the company," Morey says. "That means we hired and fired some folks. Then we made ticket sales work better.

But pretty rapidly, we figured out that getting the right players for the right amount of money is about 85 percent of a team's economics." Saddled with horrible contracts (the Celtics were paying Vin Baker more than $41 million to start a total of 42 games in green), the new owners couldn't remake their roster right away. But by 2003, Grousbeck and Morey hatched a plan -- based on their analysis of how NBA teams had won championships -- to build around an all-time-top-50 player. The idea was to sign decent players and then trade them one day for a superstar, who would pair with incumbent cornerstone Paul Pierce . The superstar they targeted? Kevin Garnett . Morey assessed players essentially by looking at their plus/minus: how well teams performed with them on the court compared with when they were on the bench. Garnett rated as the best player in the NBA, though he was languishing in Minnesota. "He was severely underappreciated, even though he was an All-Star," Morey says.

"Our research showed he had the most defensive impact in the league by far, almost by an order of magnitude." Morey left for Houston in 2006 (he is now the Rockets GM), but the Celtics followed through on his plan. In 2008, with Garnett keying one of the greatest team defensive turnarounds in NBA history, the Celtics won it all and then made another run to the Finals in 2010. They continue to seek out new thinkers, recently promoting analyst (and Harvard Law grad) Mike Zarren to assistant GM. Zarren breaks down game data and video, evaluates players and trades and reports to GM Danny Ainge. The Celtics keep most of his conclusions confidential, but he does volunteer one finding: Turnovers are even more costly than most teams realize. As he puts it, when you give up the ball, you not only give the other team an opportunity to score, you forgo your own. By the way, the Celtics cheerleaders have a nickname for Zarren: "Stats." Bottom line: The past decade has been spectacularly successful for Boston's teams on the field and off, and the forecast looks even brighter for the next decade.

After all, more wins lead to higher attendance and broadcast revenues, and spending those extra dollars wisely leads to more wins. The Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics took in a collective $756 million in revenue last year, according to Forbes, more than double their total from just 10 years ago. Their franchise values have soared even faster, and the three teams are now worth a staggering $2.7 billion. That's quite a foundation for building long-term winners. Meanwhile, Boston's championships have made the city a hotbed for students and entrepreneurs looking to get into sports management, media or consulting. Harvard has a stats club, advised by Carl Morris, called the Harvard Sports Analytics Collective. Tufts offers a course titled Sabermetrics 101. In 2007, Morey and Patriots director of new business Jessica Gelman worked with MIT's Sloan School of Business to launch an annual sports analytics conference. At first, the event took place on the MIT campus, under the radar. But this past spring, more than 1,500 attendees jammed into the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center in South Boston to hear speakers such as Malcolm Gladwell and Mark Cuban.

(ESPN was a sponsor at the event.) Grousbeck, Morey, Pagliuca, Tippett and Zarren appeared on panels too. All that brainpower, on the stage, in the audience, in the front offices and on the sidelines, means Boston's success is self-sustaining. "This city has a passionate fan base and smart fans and a supply of intelligent people coming out of universities nearby," Morey says. "Boston's got the lead. And they're going to hold it for a while." Peter Keating is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. Follow him on Twitter: @ PKStatsBlog . And follow ESPN The Magazine on Twitter: @ESPNmag . NBA.com: What's In a Name? A LOOK AT THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES OF NBA TEAMS What's In a Name? Have you ever wondered how your favorite NBA team received its famous moniker? Names like, the Lakers, the Jazz or the Heat. All NBA teams have an interesting story or a history behind their names. Some of the names reflect the city's culture or history, others were inherited from previous owners and many were selected through "Name the Team" contests. The following explains how NBA teams received their team name.

The stories also are chronicled in the book "The Names of The Games: The Stories Behind the Nicknames of 102 Pro Football, Basketball, Baseball, and Hockey Teams" by Mike Lessiter. Not a Perfect Match Los Angeles stuck with the Lakers even though L.A. is not exactly the land of the lakes. For teams like Los Angeles and Utah, the names were not always a reflection of the city. Even though lakes are not indigenous to Los Angeles, the Laker name has been a city treasure for almost 40 years. Before settling in Los Angeles , the team first originated in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1948, club officials chose the name for its direct relationship to the state's motto, "The Land of 10,000 Lakes." The team name went unchanged after moving to Los Angeles prior to the 1960 season. Since Utah 's team has its roots in New Orleans, Louisiana it would explain why it's called the Jazz. In 1974, New Orleans club officials chose the name to represent the city for its reputation as the internationally known "jazz capital of the world".

The name stayed with the team even after finding a new home in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1979. Names Selected by Original Owners Chicago 's original owner, Richard Klein probably had a premonition about the club's success when he named it the Bulls. He picked the name because the fighting bull had a relentless attitude along with the instinct to never say quit. Klein, who founded the club in 1966, believed these qualities were essential for a championship club and hoped his Chicago athletes would live up to the team name. A belief the Bulls - winners of six NBA championships in eight years - have definitely followed. The Boston Celtics and the New York Knickerbockers, of the Basketball Association of America (which later merged with the National Basketball League to form the National Basketball Association), are the only two original franchises still playing in the same city with the original team name since they were created in 1946. As head of the Boston Garden Arena Corporation, Walter Brown wanted basketball to fill his arena during long winter months and in between boxing matches and hockey games.

Brown, the Celtics' founder, tossed around a variety of names for the team including the Whirlwinds, Olympics, and Unicorns but in the end chose the "Celtics". The name has a great basketball tradition from the old Original Celtics in New York (1914-1939). Tradition played a big part in naming the New York Knickerbockers. Chosen by the club's founder Ned Irish, the Knickerbocker name already played an integral part of the New York scene. The first organized team in baseball history was named the New York Knickerbockers or the Knickerbocker Nine. The term "Knickerbockers" traces its origins back to the Dutch settlers who came to the New World - and especially to what is now known as New York - in the 1600s. Specifically, it refers to the style of pants worn by the settlers. The pants, which became known as knickerbockers or knickers, were rolled up just below the knee. Before relocating to Detroit , the Pistons' first home was Fort Wayne, Indiana where they were known as the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons.

Team owner Fred Zollner named the club after himself and his business, a piston manufacturing company in the area. However, Zollner moved the team to Detroit in 1957 in hopes of finding a bigger market. The team name went unchanged and fit right in with the Motor City's reputation as the auto capital of the world. "Name the Team" Contests On April 22, 1987, the NBA granted expansion franchises to Charlotte, Miami, Minnesota and Orlando. All four teams turned the responsibility of finding team names over to the fans by holding contests. In Charlotte 's case, the public prevailed after rejecting the original name, the Charlotte Spirit . After team officials narrowed down fan submissions, fans voted on the last six choices and the "Hornets" won by a landslide. Here comes Ray Allen of the Milwaukee Skunks?!? Miami chose the Heat from names such as the Sharks, Tornadoes, Beaches and Barracudas. The name Magic was the winner for the Orlando franchise since the city's tourism slogan is "Come to the Magic". Minnesota team officials narrowed down contest submissions to Timberwolves and Polars.

The Timberwolves name was selected by a 2-to-1 margin over the Polars because timberwolves are indigenous to Minnesota, the only state with a significant number of this breed of wolves, other than Alaska. But these weren't the only teams to ask their fans for help. Dallas chose "Mavericks" from fan submissions because of its connection to the world famous cowboy image of Texas. A contest helped Phoenix pick the Suns since it reflected Arizona's year-round sunshine and tropical climate. Seattle named its team the SuperSonics because of the huge Boeing plant located in the area in 1967. Boeing, one of the leading airplane manufacturers in the United States, proposed the building of a Concorde-style airplane called the "Supersonic Transport". Over 200 entries suggested the Sonic name even though the plans for the new plane never took off. Out of all the entries submitted to local newspapers, the Cavaliers was the top pick for Cleveland . In the same year, Portland chose the Trail Blazers for its club's name from a contest that resulted in over 10,000 entries.

In 1968, the Bucks was picked for Milwaukee 's team from entries that included Skunks, Beavers, Hornets and Ponies because it reflected the wildlife atmosphere in Wisconsin. The Houston Rockets first started out in San Diego, which selected the name because it agreed with the city's theme of a "City in Motion". After the 1970-71 season, the San Diego Rockets moved to Houston, Texas and kept the same name since it related to the city's NASA space program. After losing the Rockets to Houston, San Diego didn't have a team until the Buffalo Braves moved to California in 1978. Since team officials believed the name did not fit in with San Diego's image, a contest helped select the "Clippers" as the new name. San Diego was famous for the great sailing ships - the clippers - which passed through the city many years ago. Los Angeles became home to the NBA franchise, now known as the Los Angeles Clippers, in 1984. When Toronto became the 28th team in the NBA and the first expansion franchise outside of the United States, a contest helped come up with the Raptors for the team name.

Basketball Moves Chronicling a team's name is not always a simple task, especially in Atlanta 's case. The Atlanta Hawks played in three separate cities over a 20-year period before settling in its latest homestead in 1968. Originally known as the Tri-Cities Blackhawks, named after the famous Sauk Indian Chief Black Hawk, the team belonged to Moline and Rock Island, Illinois; and Davenport, Iowa, which were granted the franchise in 1948. Chief Black Hawk's tribe was located in Rock Island and a major part of the 1831 Black Hawk War was fought in the surrounding areas. However, in 1951, the team migrated north to Milwaukee, where the its name was shortened to the Hawks. But only four short years later, the team started to make its way south to St. Louis, Missouri, where it was known as the St. Louis Hawks. After 13 seasons, the team relocated again even further south to Atlanta, where it has been the Atlanta Hawks ever since. When Denver played its first season in the American Basketball Association (ABA) in 1967, the team was known as the Denver Rockets.

The team had a set of new owners and the opportunity to join the National Basketball Association. Since another professional basketball team was already using the Rockets, Denver changed its name to the "Nuggets" just in time for the 1974-75 season. The name refers to the 19th century gold rush when people overwhelmed the area in search of gold and silver. Before finding its home in the Golden State , the Warriors first originated in Philadelphia. The team was named after the city's original basketball team - the Warriors who played in the American Basketball League in 1925. After spending 16 years in Philadelphia, the team moved to the other side of the United States to San Francisco where they were known as the San Francisco Warriors. But a short time later, the team relocated again to Oakland in 1971, it was renamed the Golden State Warriors in an attempt to get the entire state of California involved with the basketball team. Even though the team moved to New York after its inaugural season in 1967, the club returned to New Jersey 10 years later.

During the summer of 1968, the New Jersey Americans moved to Commack, Long Island, and was renamed the New York Nets after one of the most important parts of the basketball game - the net. Yet before the start of the 1977-78 season, the team relocated back to New Jersey and kept the same name. The Sacramento Kings began as the Rochester Royals in 1945 in the National Basketball League. In 1957, the team moved to Cincinnati and renamed the Cincinnati Royals. In 1972, the team moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and called the Kansas City-Omaha Kings after the city's fans voted on the name. The team played some home games in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1975, Omaha was dropped from the name. Even though, the team moved to Sacramento, California in 1985 the name remained with the team. Before the team moved to San Antonio in the summer of 1973, it started out a Dallas franchise back in 1967. The club was named the Dallas Chaparrals, a name representing the famous thickets and trees located in Texas and Mexico.

However, in 1970 the name changed to Texas Chaparrals in an effort to spark interest throughout the state. Yet only one year later, the club's name reverted back to Dallas. When the team relocated to San Antonio, the name no longer suited the city's image and a contest decided the new Spurs name, a reflection of the western heritage of Texas. Unique Decisions Washington owner Abe Pollin didn't like the violent connotations associated with the Bullets so changed the name to the Wizards. In 1967, the Indiana Pacers selected their team name in a different way from most other teams. Their decision was based on what they wanted to accomplish in the NBA. Team officials chose the Pacer name because the organization wanted to set the "pace" in professional basketball. In the Spring of 1963, Philadelphia once again had an NBA team. The city's original team the Warriors transferred to San Francisco. After purchasing the Syracuse Nats, the team was renamed the 76ers, in honor of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, by the Continental Congress at Independence Hall located in Philadelphia.

When the Washington franchise changed its name from the Bullets to the Wizards, it marked the third name change in club history. The team first started out as the Chicago Packers in 1961, when the owner David Trager named the club after his packing company, but only one year later the team name changed to Chicago Zephyrs. By 1963, the team moved to Baltimore and renamed the Baltimore Bullets after the city's first basketball franchise. Originally, the team was named after a local World War II ammunition factory. For the 1973-74 season, they were known as the Capitol Bullets. But times have changed. With America moving to end violence and bring peace to its neighborhoods, Washington owner Abe Pollin made the decision to change the name to the Wizards for the beginning of the 1997-98 season. As the latest addition to the NBA, the Vancouver franchise selected the Grizzlies as its team name because grizzlies are an indigenous species to the area (there are about 20,000 Grizzly bears in British Columbia) and are prominent in northwestern native culture and mythology. How did the Celtics and the Lakers get their names?

| Dictionary.com Blog June 17, 2010 by: Dictionary.com 56 Comments Game seven of the NBA Finals. A familiar rivalry that actually becomes more exciting because the teams have so much basketball history. Let’s step back from the oomph and ebullience of the Finals for a minute. How much do you know about the basics behind the Celtics/Lakers battle? What is a Celtic , and why the Boston Celtics? The Celts were various peoples who lived across Europe when the Roman Empire was expanding. The common factor between the tribal groups was the Celtic family of languages. The region where Celtic languages still have the strongest presence is Scotland, Wales, part of France, and Ireland. NBA.com gives the following reason for how the Boston Celtics got their name: Team founder Walter Brown thought of an earlier basketball team from New York named the Celtics and figured since Boston had a large Irish population, the Celtics was a great name to use again. The moniker stuck. As many commenters have noted, the pronunciation of “Celtic” is a messy thing.

While we say the Boston “Celtics” with the C sounding like an S, when one talks about “Celtic” language or anything that refers to Celtic culture, the C sounds like a K. But if we talk about “the Celts” to describe the ancient people of that name, the C sounds like an S. Yet another demonstration that language can be as inconsistent as the world it describes. Now, the Los Angeles Lakers. Los Angeles isn’t known for bodies of water besides the Pacific. The Los Angeles River is an infamously dry canal paved with concrete. So who put the lake in the Lakers? Before the Lakers moved to arid Southern California, the team was known as the Minneapolis Lakers. As in Minnesota , “land of 10,000 lakes.” Why did the team owner, Bob Short, keep the now oxymoronic name? One of the major rules of branding is “If people recognize it, keep it.” Plus, “the Los Angeles Lakers” is the epitome of awesome alliteration . Do you have any burning questions about basketball names or meaning? (Like the etymology of dribble ?

Or the origin of foul ?) Post your queries in the comments section and check back later for an answer. Animals, plants and nature Send items to nbrcalendar@dailyherald.com.(Neighbor) Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL) November 5, 2011 Events that involve pets and other animals, plants and nature, such as adoption days, nature walks, microchipping, nature photography exhibits, calls for volunteers for nature-related work days, etc. Deadline is two weeks before event date. Greyhounds Only Meet & Greet: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. the first Saturday of the month, PetSmart, Hunt Club Road and Grand Ave., Gurnee. Come and meet retired racing greyhounds and learn about their need for loving caring homes. Information about other Greyhounds Only Meet & Greet locations, donations, volunteer opportunities and adoption and rescue needs can be found at or call (847) 421-9828. website astronomy for kids Worm Bin workshop: 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, Knupper Nursery, 1801 N. Rand Road, Palatine.

Don’t throw kitchen scraps into the landfill, feed them to your worms. Create a worm bin of your own. Materials and starter worms are included. $20 per bin. register at (847) 359-1080. in our site astronomy for kids Lake County Audubon Society: 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 7, Libertyville Village Hall, 118 W. Cook St., Dr. Jeff Walk, director of science for the Illinois Chapter of The Nature Conservancy give a presentation on “Illinois Birds: a Century of Change.” All welcome. Chris, (847) 362-5134. Volunteer at Stillman: Friday, Nov. 11 and 25, Stillman Nature Center, Penny Road, between Routes 59 and 62, South Barrington. Volunteer duties include clearing buckthorn, collecting seeds, planting trees, burning brush, cleaning raptor enclosures, and spreading chips on trails. Stillman has the tools; healthy, outdoor-loving volunteers are needed. Bring work gloves and wear clothes you don’t mind getting muddy.

For information, (847) 428-6957 or stillnc@wildblue.net. Astronomy for Kids: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12, Harper College’s Karl G. Henize Observatory, 1200 W. Algonquin Road, Palatine. Students in third-sixth grade learn to identify planets, stars and constellations in Palatine’ night sky and observe deep-sky objects through telescopes. Free, open to the public. Visit, harperastronomy.org. Boston Celtics - Boston.com ©2016 Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC Boston Celtics Celtics' Cousy has vital role as player representative - News - Stripes From the Stars and Stripes archives Celtics' Cousy has vital role as player representative More By LARRY MANNING | STARS AND STRIPES Published: September 27, 1955 LANDSBERG, Germany, Sept. 26 — Many people recognize Bob Cousy as an alltime basketball playing great, but few are aware of the role he plays as Boston Celtics and Eastern Division player representative in the National Basketball Assn.

Cousy, twice All America at Holy Cross, was one of the organizers of a player-representative body among NBA performers. Now each team has a spokesman with two men selected as Eastern and Western Divisions' representative. Goals are much the same as those for similar groups in pro football or organized baseball. As soon as he leaves here, where he's working with a star-studded staff of instructors conducting the annual USAFE basketball training school, Cousy and his Western Division counterpart plan to meet with NBA President Maurice Podoloff. Jim Pollard, Minneapolis Lakers, handled the Western Division job last year but has since stepped down from playing ranks. "We certainly don't want to dip into the owners' pockets," Cousy says, "but we feel it's about time we started pressing for player benefits." The players realize none of the owners are taking in big profits on their games, but added that increased league take through television and boosts in gates provide a source for financing retirement plans. "Right now we know the owners can't afford such an idea," Bob says. But he plans to pump for elimination of present evils. He feels the 50 exhibition games played by some clubs is too severe.

"That makes a total of 130 games in six months," Cousy says. And he goes on to state his personal feelings on the jump from college ball to the pro court. "The biggest difference," Bob feels, "is the longer schedule and the big travel hops." He'd like to see a limit on exhibitions so that players know what is expected of them over a season. "Too many games slow you up physically," Bob claims. The players will also shoot for a change in the territorial rights setup. Under the NBA system, each club has exclusive rights to the services of any star on a college team located within 50 miles of the pros. A club has to declare their lack of interest in the court ace before he can be placed on the regular draft list. Then he can be selected by anyone but has to play with the team that picks him — or spend the season at leisure without pay. Bob thinks some clubs have used the system to their advantage at the expense of the player. "If a club can't use him at the moment, he sits it out until they choose to sell him," Cousy explains. Sometimes they won't sell him for an obvious reason. Strengthening a rival club is no way to win a league crown.

One of the weapons occasionally brought into play by the owners is the offering of a ridiculously low salary to a college ace. If he spurns it, he's on the sidelines no matter how much another club may want him. So a minimum salary provision for the NBA is high on the list of player goals. Cousy, as chief architect in formation of the player group, plans to keep pushing his ideas despite the fact that league reception has only been lukewarm in the past. In fact, Bob feels that the league powers have given him the brush off on several occasions. To strengthen player bargaining, Cousy plans to let a legal expert present player arguments in the future negotiations. He emphasizes that he has no gripe with owners or league officials. But Bob feels that adoption of some of the player-inspired ideas will minimize future owner-player difficulties and give each player — from top star to rookie — a chance for better security and longer playing life. "Basketball is our bread and butter," is the way he explains his interest. Questions from the student group here brought forth some other Cousy opinions.

Asked to name the defensive man who gives him the most trouble, he replied, "They all do." Pressed, he picked two — Bobby Wanzer and Frank Selvy. Cousy hit the pro trail after a brilliant college career with Holy Cross. Twice All America there, he has been named to the All-Pro team in the last four of his five seasons in a pro uniform. Many fans, coaches and officiate rate him an alltime great already. A brilliant ball-handler, the league's top man in the assist department, a high-powered scorer, he's a fan-pleasing drawing card on all the NBA courts. And he is a top team man in the eyes of his coach and teammates. His dribbling exploits while demonstrating maneuvers here have several times brought forth spontaneous applause from the USAFE, Army and NATO coaches. According to Cousy, some of his pro cohorts don't always look on his ball-handling magic with the same favor. "I've often been accused of showboating by an opponent," Bob says in talking about his famous behind-the-back dribble and other Cousy-spawned tricks of the court trade. Bob pleads "not guilty" to the charge.

"Every trick I use is justified offensively," Cousy retorts. He'll readily admit, though, that he's aware the crowd appeal of his style of play — and as quick to add that he would be inclined to use them if only because they keep his salary up. Bob claims he's not too fast afoot. Big hands, long arms and fast reflexes — that's the way he explains his unique ability. "The behind-the-back dribble gives me the jump on the defender," he points out. Cousy insists he never sets out to ridicule an opponent as some have claimed. "They are all too good as it is without having them all hopped up and gunning for me," he rationalizes. Listening to Cousy, an extremely quiet and modest individual, one gets the idea that here is a unique athlete — one with outstanding athletic ability who can well understand the business side of the game, the viewpoint of owner and fan. Bob Cousy poses with clinic participants from the U.S. and other NATO countries. Bob Myers/Stars and Stripes Boston Tickets | Concerts, Sports & Events | TicketCity Load More Events Currently Showing X of Y ` Boston Ticket Information Back to Top Boston has one of the richest histories of any American city.

After all, it is one of the birthplaces of the United States, and some of the country's most historical figures have passed through its streets. With such a robust sense of history and a rabid sports culture that rivals any other city out there, Boston is one of those places you simply must visit. You'd also be remiss if you didn't take in some of the historical offerings the city has to offer, and luckily that's not hard to do. The Freedom Trail winds through the city and will bring you to all of the crucial landmarks, from Faneuil Hall to the Boston Common to the Old North Church and will certainly give you a wonderful view of this quintessential American city. Sports in Boston There are four professional sports teams in Boston: Boston Red Sox , New England Patriots , Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins . Something is always in season, so get your Boston sports tickets before you make the trip. Concerts in Boston From every big to small concerts, Boston is a huge city for the most popular tours for fans to jam out to their favorite artists and bands. From big venues like TD Gardens to the smaller Orpheum Theatre, Boston has shows going on every night of the week.

Spring in Boston The weather during the spring starts off cold but towards the end of the season, temperatures start to rise in the 70s. Expect a mix of weather conditions of snow and rain but by the end, the flowers start to bloom. Spring brings the most exciting part of the NBA season as the regular season winds down and playoffs begin. The Boston Celtics will be looking for their spot in the playoffs. The TD Garden is the home of the Boston Celtics but year round is the place for the biggest tours and concerts that come to Boston. The TD Garden has seen the likes of Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez, Adele and top comedians like Chris Rock. TD Garden Address: 100 Legends Way, Boston, MA 02114 The TD Garden is the home of the Boston Celtics and is a popular stop for concert tours and shows. TD Garden Basketball Seating Chart TD Garden Hockey Seating Chart TD Garden Concert Seating Chart Summer in Boston Boston is the capital of the New England sports scene, with its slew of major league teams. None of them, however, are more popular than the Red Sox and in Boston the summer is all about baseball.

One of the oldest MLB teams, the Red Sox have developed legions of followers over the years thanks in large part to their Fenway Park home. Perhaps the most unique baseball stadium in the country, Fenway is simply a sight to behold even if a game is not going on, with its iconic Green Monster left field wall and giant, neon Citgo sign above it. Temperatures in the summer average around the 80s and at night going as low as the 60s. Expect some thunderstorms to pop up, so don&rsquo;t forget your umbrella. Fenway Park Address: 4 Yawkey Way, Boston, MA 02215 Fenway Park is the home of the Boston Red Sox. Fenway Park Seating Chart Fall in Boston Just a short drive from Boston is Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. One of the most consistent teams in the NFL, the Patriots have fans from all over New England drive to the friendly confines of this Foxboro, Massachusetts stadium. The New England Patriots have won 4 Super Bowls since 2001, making them one of the best NFL teams in history.

The energy at the Gillett Stadium when the Patriots are planning is like no other. When fall rolls around make sure to grab your sweater and scarf as temperatures began cooling, but with that comes the glorious colors as the leaves change color. Gillett Stadium Address: 1 Patriot Pl, Foxborough, MA 02035 The Gillett Stadium is home to the New England Patriots team. Gillett Stadium Seating Chart Winter in Boston As the cold takes of the city, Boston&rsquo;s NHL team, the Boston Bruins season is in full force at the TD Gardens. While sports may be a big part of Boston, it is definitely not the only draw. The city is home to a wide variety of music venues, from the intimate setting of the Orpheum Theatre to the more commercial House of Blues, right across from Fenway. Additionally, the city is home to the Boston Pops, who have been delighting audiences for more than 100 years. Expect a season of cold and snow when winter comes along in Boston. Orpheum Theatre Address: 1 Hamilton Pl, Boston, MA 02108 The Orpheum Theatre is another great Boston venue for concerts and shows.

Boston Celtics Basketball - Celtics News, Scores, Stats, Rumors & More - ESPN Thomas should return to All-Star Game share Kevin Pelton selects Isaiah Thomas to make his second straight appearance in the mid-season gala. The East would be foolish not to have him on the court during the fourth quarter. Pelton's All-Star reserves (Insider) share Chris Forsberg ESPN Staff Writer Boston Celtics guard Isaiah Tho finished tied with DeMar DeRozan in the voting among fans, media, and current players. DeRozan earned the starting spot based on tie-breaker — the fan vote — after finishing one spot ahead of Thomas. The final vote breakdown: DeRozan at 796,112; Thomas at 755,102. share Torrid start for Thomas in 2017 share After dropping 39 points on Wednesday, Isaiah Thomas is averaging 32.4 PPG in January. He's on pace to have the fourth most of any Celtics player in one month (min. five games). share Al Horford se adapta a Boston...

y a los nuevos tiempos share Lo que el internacional con República Dominicana está experimentando es un cambio profundo en su manera de jugar al básquetbol. Leer share Isaiah Thomas and the Celtics weren't feeling good after their loss to the Knicks on Wednesday, feeling as if New York outworked and outhustled them. play Thomas says Celtics got 'punked' by Knicks (1:08) Chris Forsberg ESPN Staff Writer Boston Celtics guard Avery Bradley was a late scratch from Wednesday's loss to the New York Knicks. Bradley, who missed four games recently due to an Achilles strain, was sore after returning to game action on Monday night and Celtics coach Brad Stevens said it's likely he'll miss more time to fully recover. "I can see him missing a little bit more time," said Stevens. "I just think maybe he came back a little bit too early." Stevens stressed there's no further structural issue, Bradley is simply sore. share Derrick Rose matched his season high with 30 points, and the slumping New York Knicks beat the Boston Celtics 117-106 on Wednesday night.

Chris Forsberg ESPN Staff Writer Knicks 117, Celtics 106: Boston hadn't lost to an inferior opponent since a home loss to Detroit on Nov. 30. The Celtics were 16-7 after that while losing only to teams ahead of them in the standings (Toronto x2, Oklahoma City x2, San Antonio, Houston, Cleveland). Isaiah Thomas (39 points, eight in a rare quiet 4th) and the Celtics were overdue for a clunker. Knicks dominated the glass and shot lights out (50.5 percent overall; 40 percent beyond 3-point arc). share Johnson flies in to deny Rose's shot at the basket (0:22) Chris Forsberg ESPN Staff Writer Celtics guard Isaiah Thomas typically saves his offensive outbursts for the fourth quarter. But he's already up to 31 points midway through the third quarter while trying to will Boston back against the Knicks. This is Thomas' 13th game of 30+ this season.

share Thomas throws ball between defender's legs (0:20) play Celtics' ball movement leads to Thomas 3 (0:22) Chris Forsberg ESPN Staff Writer Brad Stevens is wearing a tie (13-4 this season) tonight vs. the Knicks. Kelly Olynyk has got the manbun (15-6 this season). When their secret super powers are combined this year, the Celtics are 8-1. share Ohm Youngmisuk ESPN Staff Writer Isaiah Thomas intro before facing a Knicks team without Kristaps Porzingis and Joakim Noah. share Chris Forsberg ESPN Staff Writer Boston Celtics guard Avery Bradley is a late scratch for Wednesday's game vs. the Knicks with a sore right Achilles. Bradley missed four games due to that injury before returning Monday vs. the Hornets. share Chris Forsberg ESPN Staff Writer Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens asked if Isaiah Thomas deserves to be an All-Star starter. "Sure." And why is that? "Because he's had a hell of a year." share Ohm Youngmisuk ESPN Staff Writer Kristaps Porzingis, Joakim Noah and Lance Thomas are all OUT tonight in Boston.

share Celtics coach Brad Stevens leaves team to visit ex-player battling cancer Celtics coach Brad Stevens leaves team to visit ex-player battling cancer Coach traveled to Indiana to visit ex-Butler player and missed Thursday’s game vs. Bulls. Post to Facebook Celtics coach Brad Stevens leaves team to visit ex-player battling cancer Coach traveled to Indiana to visit ex-Butler player and missed Thursday’s game vs. Bulls. Check out this story on USATODAY.com: CancelSend A link has been sent to your friend's email address. Posted! A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. 5 To find out more about Facebook commenting please read the Conversation Guidelines and FAQs Celtics coach Brad Stevens leaves team to visit ex-player battling cancer Jeff Zillgitt and David Woods, USA TODAY Sports Published 6:29 p.m. ET Jan. 7, 2016 | Updated 2:04 a.m. ET Jan. 8, 2016 Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens (Photo: Derick E. Hingle, USA TODAY Sports) Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens traveled to Indiana to visit with a former Butler player who is battling cancer, and Stevens will miss Thursday’s game against the Chicago Bulls.

Boston media outlets reported the player is Andrew Smith, who has been battling cancer for two years. “We ask that the private nature of this visit be respected,” the Celtics said in a statement. Smith, who played for Stevens at Butler and played in the 2010 and 2011 Final Four, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in January 2014, and was readmitted to the hospital this week. Smith’s family made a renewed request for prayer Wednesday. His wife, Samantha, posted on Facebook and Twitter: “Please pray. Pray so very hard. We need a miracle & Andrew asked me to have you all rally with us in prayer in this moment.” Smith’s father, Curt, also asked on Twitter that people “pray for a miracle” for his son. Smith's sister, Julie Smith Webster, posted on Facebook: "Hey all, I hate to be cryptic but my brother Andrew has asked us to ask you all to pray. For healing, for peace, for understanding, for God to be made big in this battle. Drew doesn't ever ask for things but I'm so proud that in dark times he asks for Jesus. His faith is stunning.

God's answers will be even more so." Smith has been largely confined in recent weeks but attended the Dec. 19 game in which Butler defeated previously unbeaten Purdue 74-68 in the Crossroads Classic at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Smith was released from the hospital in time to be home for Christmas. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in January 2014. In an earlier blog, Samantha said Andrew was readmitted to the hospital following a Nov. 6 bone marrow transplant and that her husband’s condition had worsened . She said the only treatment option left was a clinical study. Celtics assistant Jay Larranaga will guide the team in Stevens' absence. He told reporters in Chicago that Stevens' decision to miss the game is emblematic of his family-first attitude towards coaching and life in the NBA. "He makes it very clear to our players on a day-to-day basis that family is the most important, that the things they’re able to do away from the court," Larranaga said. "I think our players do a great job of giving back to the community, and the impact that they’re able to have in those areas are so much more important than what happens on the court.

So, it’s just another example of the person he is. " David Woods writes for The Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY Network. Contributing: Michael Singer in Chicago. CLOSE

Question: Which American city has basketball-playing 'Celtics'?
Answer: BOSTON